If your COVID-19 test will be contacted by contact tracing staff in North Carolina via SMS, email, or phone call. The task of contact tracing staff is to find out where you may have been exposed to the virus and whether anyone else in your environment may have been exposed as well. A team member will inform your close contacts of their exposure and help them stay healthy. This is the contact tracing process. People who have been in contact with someone with COVID-19 may not have symptoms and may not realize they could spread the virus. Answering the phone when the COVID-19 community team calls, responding to their text messages or emails, and providing information will help protect your loved ones and community. It is also necessary to think about close contacts who express fear of abuse or violence when they have to quarantine at home. In addition, some contacts (e.g., B single parents, breastfeeding mothers, parents with children and toddlers and other primary caregivers) may face other challenges, such as. B, childcare or care for dependent adults, which can affect their ability to quarantine. Social services, housing services and other support services are needed for contacts who cannot separate from others in their current living situation.

For more information, see Support Services. The public health assessment of close contact with laboratory-confirmed or probable COVID-19 patients may vary depending on the context of exposure. Contacts in specific populations or gathering environments require additional attention and may need to be assigned to an investigator or a core team from the Ministry of Health. For instructions on how to manage these contacts, see Attack investigations. In addition, this CDC scientific note can be consulted for more information on the transmission of SARS-COV-2 in K-12 schools and early childhood care and education programs. The COVID-19 Community Team is the team of contact tracers working to slow the spread of COVID-19 in North Carolina. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has brought this team together (the COVID-19 Community Team) as part of a partnership with local health departments to expand their network and increase the number of contact tracers to better meet the additional contact tracing demand caused by COVID-19. Contact tracing helps slow the spread of COVID-19. By letting people know if they have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, exposed people can stay home to protect their community. In addition, it provides a way to connect people with free support and the tools to isolate or quarantine, monitor symptoms, get tested, and protect us and our loved ones.

If you have questions about contact tracing and would like to speak to someone immediately, please call your local health department or NC Outreach at 1-844-628-7223. All information is confidential and your personal information or name will not be shared with anyone. All information you share with the COVID-19 Community Team is a private and strictly confidential health record. Personal data will not be shared with other government agencies. Contact tracing is one way to reach people who have been around someone who tests positive for COVID-19. Discover an example of how contact tracing works with this infographic in English and Spanish. Your name and personal information will not be shared with any of your contacts. Any information you provide is confidential and will not be shared outside of contact tracing staff. Contact tracing is a public health process performed by contact tracers trained in coordination with North Carolina Health Services through phone calls, text messages, and emails. Members of the COVID-19 community team communicate with people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and discuss people they may have been in close contact with while they were contagious, in addition to directing isolation and connecting them with the necessary support. Contact tracers then call these close contacts to inform them of their potential exposure and provide advice on quarantine, test dates and necessary support. If your COVID-19 test is positive, you will likely receive a text message or email informing you of your COVID-19 diagnosis, and a member of the covid-19 community team can also contact us by phone.

The purpose of this mission is to alert you to your positive diagnosis, guide you on isolation, and ensure that you have the resources and support you need while staying at home. Staying at home and avoiding contact with other members of your household can help minimize the risk of spreading COVID-19 and protect your loved ones and neighbors. No, but contact tracing only works if everyone does their part and reacts. The COVID-19 Community Team will make several attempts to reach anyone who does not or cannot respond. In jurisdictions with testing capacity, symptomatic and asymptomatic close contacts with patients with confirmed and probable COVID-19 should be assessed and monitored. For areas where screening support is insufficient and/or public health resources are limited, the following assessment and surveillance hierarchy (Box 4) and prioritization recommendations for case investigation and contact tracing can be used to control priority setting. The hierarchy is based on the assumption that the close contacts listed in Priority 1 could be infected, potentially exposing many people, people at higher risk of serious illness or critical infrastructure employees. When close Contacts of Priority 2 are infected, they may be at greater risk of contracting a serious illness, so it is important to immediately notify, monitor and link the necessary medical and support services. For contacts within the jurisdiction of your Ministry of Health: If you are a SlowCOVIDNC user, you may receive an exposure notification via the app if you have been in close contact with another app user who has tested positive for COVID-19. All information shared with the COVID-19 community team is a private and strictly confidential health record.

Personal information will not be shared with other government agencies, and the names of individuals and contacts will not be disclosed or shared. If you take a test that provides results at home without the supervision of a testing provider, the COVID-19 community team will not be notified of your result or will attempt to contact you. When you take a test at home that is sent to a lab, the team is notified of your result and tries to reach you by phone, SMS or email. If you have any questions, you can contact the COVID-19 Community Team daily from 7:.m a.m. to 7:.m p.m. at 1-844-628-7223. *Consider moving to Priority 1 if each critical infrastructure employee works closely with other critical infrastructure employees and/or is in close contact with a large number of people (e.B transportation, catering). Check out this fact sheet, available in English and Spanish, for more information on what to do if you test positive for COVID-19 or have been in contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19.

In addition to storing information, this tool helps the community team identify and reach people who may have met someone with COVID-19. The tool can launch text and email messages to inform people who have tested positive or have been exposed to COVID-19. In addition, when an individual chooses the digital process, they can initiate a daily assessment via text or email to enable effective communication about changes in symptoms or resource needs. When prioritizing close contacts for assessment and surveillance, administrations should be guided by local characteristics of disease transmission, demographics, and the capacities of public health and health systems. Some states require mandatory testing for certain circumstances. Local decisions depend on local guidelines and circumstances. Self-quarantine of close contacts exposed to COVID-19 prevents transmission to others and is critical to the success of case investigation and contact tracing. For the most part, self-quarantine can take place at home.

If possible, contacts should be asked to voluntarily stay home, monitor each other, and maintain social distancing from others. The self-quarantine period is 14 days after the last day of exposure to a COVID-19 patient to ensure that the contact does not get sick on their own and does not transmit the virus to others. Compliance with self-quarantine instructions may depend on telephone support. In addition to resources from the local Ministry of Health, the COVID-19 Community Team uses software called the COVID-19 Community Team Outreach Tool to store and track information collected during the contact tracing process. This tool is a secure public health platform that keeps personal information confidential and confidential. Covid-19 Community Team text messages come from 45394 and emails from NC-Outreach-noreply@dhhs.nc.gov. When a team member contacts you by phone, NC OUTREACH (844-628-7223) or the phone number of your local health department will appear on your phone. The team represents communities throughout North Carolina and provides support and information in multiple languages. People should make sure to answer the call when the COVID-19 community team contacts. In addition, the community team asks you questions about anyone else you`ve been in contact with recently or with whom you`ve been in close contact. This will allow the community team to contact people who may have been exposed to COVID-19 and share all the information and support they need to stay home until the risk of transmitting the virus to others is over. The team does not share names or personal information.

This information is confidential and remains private. Each of these steps slows the spread of COVID-19. This information can also be provided through a patient-case portal (which can be found on the link in the text or email) that allows you to enter contacts on your phone or computer, or by providing them over the phone during a call from a community team member or by calling your local health department. .